Interesting Question - Discuss! - Granite Grok

Interesting Question – Discuss!

From Instapundit:

St. Paul public schools spend $17,000 per pupil per year.  This translates into $221,000 per pupil over the course of their k-12 career, and that does not include baby-sitting school…er…I mean “pre-school.”

This got me thinking.

“What if we just gave the kids the $221,000 instead of educated them?  Wouldn’t they be better off?  I mean, I never had $221,000 in my name in my LIFE.  But by the age of 18, you could buy a house FOR CASH and never have to pay rent again.”

So I looked up the median price of a home in St. Paul.  $197,607 (though this may change of course).

It’s actually CHEAPER to BUY A HOUSE in St. Paul than educate one of their precious chllllllldrnnnnnnn.  You could buy 1.1 houses per pupil instead of sending them to school.

Interesting question.  I’m not convinced that this is the same idea that every babe born should automatically be given a checking account of $X or a savings bond equivalent.  However, combine the above idea with that of Peter Thiel’s offer of $100,000 to some college kids to drop out and start a business instead and the mind starts to brainstorm.  No, I’m not thinking that kids don’t need to be educated – but I do wonder if there are more efficient ways to have people be more productive with their lives.  Assume, for instance, that some parents start taking advantage of other avenues of educating their kids (home school, a cheaper charter school or private school, or even taking advantage of the online schools like Kahn Academy); if we were to switch to a “ed money follows the child” financial model, can these “disruptive technologies” provide adequate learning AND with “a house” and avoidance of college debt (average is now a decent car: $27,000) provide a different path for “life success”?

Note: also, a different way of thinking about money: K-12 = a house……college debt = a car

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